Andrew goes on an Inhuman Rampage and Delivers an Ultra Beatdown on Dragonforce.

Album: Inhuman Rampage
Artist: Dragonforce
Genre: Quest Metal
Year: 2006
Label: Roadrunner/Noise

Early morning. The dew still sparkles on the leaves; the sun is just creeping over the horizon. And then, BOOM! A drum beats, then another and another, in triple time no less. Guitars sound, two of them, moving at lightning speed across the grassy plains toward you. You try to run but they move so fast, they’re inescapable. And then the voice-shrill, whiny, a higher pitch then anything you thought possible-coming from a male voice. But you’re too busy trying to fend off the guitars, which have you in their grasp. As they continue to play, they seem to get faster, each one trying to get ahead of the other. The sound they create is incredible, because to credit it with anything would be heresy. As the guitars take flight, your sense of self worth is torn from your body like a dragon would tear out your vital organs. You think “surely I can still be taken seriously in the musical sense of the word; surely this is not the end of my credibility.” But it is. Because the Dragonforce has got you.

Dragonforce is a sextet of Quest Metal-heads from somewhere deep in Middle Earth… I mean, England. I’ll get the good out of the way now. Dragonforce is obviously a highly technical group of musicians because to play that fast you have to have some skill. What’s unfortunate about Dragonforce is what they do with that skill. I have never heard more wanktastic solos in my life then the ones on the song Through the Fire and The Flames. All forty of them. The music they create is ridiculously self-indulgent as evidenced by songs with dozens of masturbatory solos, each one minutes in length. What’s worse is that all of their songs sound exactly the same, because Dragonforce suffers from what I refer to as “Nickelback Syndrome”. One of the things that could save Dragonforce is a decent vocalist, but frankly, they haven’t got one. ZP Threat looks like Kenny G and sings like his balls are in a vice that is being slowly tightened over the course of the song. The lyrics don’t help the situation as they sound like they were torn from the Lord of the Rings and early Dungeons & Dragons. I like Lord of the Rings, but when set to metal the whole thing becomes an absurd self-parody the likes of which I should not have to hear. Also, the band features some of the fakest percussion you will ever hear on a rock record. I can’t stand blast beats and they’re used (like everything else) with reckless abandon on this album, giving the whole thing a really false, pretentious atmosphere.

The single thing that prevents Dragonforce from being completely lost to the fires of hell is this: They don’t take themselves seriously. This is shown by their utterly silly music videos, in one of which the band is featured as playable characters in a Guitar Hero-like video game. But does this save them from my ire? Hell no. They still create the absolute worst kind of pretentious self-absorbed guitar circle jerking, and all their songs still sound exactly the same. I barely even sat through the whole album once and have no intention of ever doing so again. I gotta unclench my jaw now, excuse me.